Chapter Text
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Sirius Black let out an aggravated sigh as he flopped down onto the worn sofa in the library at 12 Grimmauld Place. He looked around at the peeling dilapidated wallpaper adorning the walls, unable to comprehend the shitty luck he’d suffered in his miserable little life.
He had made a vow to himself when he was sixteen on the day that he’d run away from home that he would never ever set foot in this infernal prison, and yet here he (sort-of) willingly was, offering it up for use at the request of Albus Dumbledore to be used as headquarters for the Order of the Phoenix.
“Sickle for your thoughts?” Remus murmured as he opened another discarded box full of old Black family heirlooms that Kreacher, his horrid little house-elf hadn’t yet managed to drag back to his hidey-hole.
“I just can’t believe it, Moony. Nearly twenty years later and we’re still stuck at square one. Having to have these god awful meetings and still nothing is being done,” Sirius complained, shaking his head slowly and glaring at the items that Remus was carefully pulling out from the box.
“We’ve only had a few proper meetings, Sirius. We’re not going to win a potential war in just one day. Much as I wish that were possible.”
“It’s just a fucking joke. I mean, I wouldn’t mind it so much if I didn’t have to stay here all the bloody time, but did you hear what Dumbledore said? He won’t even entertain the idea of Harry staying here for the summer! And why is it up to him anyway? Just packed him off back to that awful horse faced woman, what was her name?” Sirius snapped, jumping up and starting to pace around the room.
“Petunia, as you well know,” Remus offered absentmindedly as he pulled out a gaudy dining set from the box, no doubt cursed by one of his wretched family members.
“Horse-face, yes. And he’s all on his own, Dumbledore won’t even let Ron write to him, so no doubt he’s told Hermione the same thing. I’ve got no idea what his mental state is like because, even though he’s constantly being watched by Kingsley or whoever he’s got there now, no one’s actually spoken to him!”
Sirius looked down as Remus let out a tired sigh. He felt a lick of guilt as he noticed the dark bags under his friends eyes. He was sure he too was feeling the strain at Dumbledore’s seemingly slow movements post the resurrection of the noseless bastard.
He knelt down next to Remus and started helping to empty out the boxes. Molly Weasley had seemingly taken it upon herself to move nearly her entire family into Grimmauld Place for some unknown reason and had everyone present clearing out the rooms in the house. Even now, Sirius could hear the floorboards creaking as various red-headed children grumbled as they were put to work.
“Oh good, Sirius, there you are,” Molly said, bustling into the library, dumping another box caked in dust down in front of the men. “If you wouldn’t mind going through this and sorting out what you would like to keep.”
Molly dusted off her apron and was out the door before Sirius could offer any rebuke.
“If there’s another thing I bloody hate it’s being told what to do, as I’m bloody doing it,” Sirius grumbled under his breath and concealed a smile as Remus chuckled and nudged his shoulder.
He could always trust his old friend, really his only friend that was left to lift his spirits when he was feeling especially glum. Which was most days actually. And of course, by ‘old friend’ he meant the man whose name was carved upon his heart. He had just never had the bollocks to admit to it out loud.
Sirius pushed that embarrassing thought to the back of his mind. It had never felt like the right time to bring it up. Either Remus was feeling mopey about his status in the world, or Sirius had said something brash recently, giving him the hump. And that was just during their time at Hogwarts. Once they were let loose on the real world, with jobs and the stress of joining the Order, and the war itself; well, there were always more important things to worry about. And now, there was the underlying realisation that prickled under Sirius’ skin reminding him that he had sat in Azkaban for twelve years and Remus had never come for him.
He brought himself back to the task at hand. Merlin, his ancestors were truly fucking awful. The horrible items that they had accumulated over the generations made him feel quite sick. He didn’t want to even look at them but he supposed if he was going to have the carrot of Harry being to visit for at least a small part of the summer dangled in front of him, he would do his part and make the space habitable at the very least.
“Is Hermione meant to be joining us here as well?” Remus asked, but Sirius had zoned out as he bought out a gaudy looking miniature shimmering blue lamp, embedded with rusted jewels from the box.
“Merlin’s beard, that looks like Aladdin's lamp,” Remus laughed as he clocked what Sirius was holding.
“Who’s that?” Sirius asked.
“Alad- oh, never mind,” Remus shook his head. “It’s meant to have a genie inside it that grants you three magical wishes. It’s from a muggle children’s story.”
“Looks like a tacky gravy boat to me. I might keep hold of this and use it for dinner. That’ll piss Molly off.” Sirius instantly felt himself cheer up at the idea. His days of pranking might be far and few between but let no one say that Sirius Black was no longer a Marauder.
“So, another meeting and still nothing is being done,” Sirius mumbled a few days later, slumped in his seat at the kitchen table in a voice low enough that only Remus’ sensitive hearing would pick up on it. He tried to not let it show on his face how much Dumbledore’s lack of action was grating on him but judging by the furtive and warning looks Remus and Kingsley were sending him he wasn’t doing a very good job of it.
It was all made truly worse by the calibre of the Order of the Phoenix 2.0. Sirius managed to hold back a scoff as he looked around the dining table. Him and Remus; best blokes in the world. The rest of the Order? Minus a few notable mentions like Kings and Mad-Eye it was a bit of a joke really. Hestia Jones was a bit of an odd witch but was mostly alright, he supposed, but it was certainly not like the old days.
Sirius had to work especially hard to hold back a groan when his eyes fell upon ol’ Snivelly. Double agent my arse, he thought to himself.
Remus nudged him gently to bring his attention back to the room.
“Harry looked a bit peaky actually. Bit pale and clammy. I tried to send over a cooling spell on him but I don’t think it did much,” Tonks reported from her seat further up the table. Sirius straightened up in his seat.
“He’s not well? Then why the bloody hell are we leaving him there on his own?” he roared. The table hushed and Snape rolled his eyes as they no doubt prepared to listen to the same old back-and-forth they’d heard countless times.
Sirius didn’t even bother listening to the response given. He watched Dumbledore's mouth move but had zoned out completely. It was always the same. 'Harry is protected there.' Pfft, as if Harry couldn’t be protected here with Sirius, safe under the Fidelius charm and with people around him that cared for him and loved him. If Harry was so important to the war effort, if he was the 'boy who lived’ then why was everyone so content to leave him on his lonesome.
He had watched just this afternoon when Harry’s friend Hermione, or rather, Sirius’ saviour Hermione’s face had fallen when she’d arrived at Grimmauld Place, only to find that Harry wasn’t already here and was still stuck in Surrey. Her questioning on the matter had brought along all the same answers that Sirius received each time he broached the subject.
If it hadn’t been stressed so much to her the need for secrecy and for as little movement around the Order headquarters then Sirius didn’t doubt that Hermione wouldn’t have marched right back through the front door and summoned the Knight Bus right there and then to go and liberate her best friend. As it was, Ron had pulled her from the hallway as Sirius’ mothers cursed portrait began spewing her vitriol about the current habitants of the house.
Sirius continued to zone out of the meeting and started to fidget in his chair. He grabbed the little gravy boat that had indeed annoyed Molly when he presented it at the dinner table that evening. He ran his fingers over the handle and noticed there were faint runes etched in amongst the jewels. Runes were always one of Sirius’ specialities, more than half of the tattoos on his body were written in various runic languages, but these ones were so imperceptible and worn down that he couldn’t get a clear enough read on them. He thought he saw the symbol for Ansuz before he gave up and placed the lamp back on the table, the clunking sound causing Molly to look over to him in mild frustration.
‘I wish I could see Harry,’ Sirius thought to himself morosely, ‘Most of all I wish I knew how to finish this bloody war once and for all.’
As soon as he finished that train of thought he noticed a faint shimmer around the lamp. He leant in closer to get a better look. He was sure he’d seen a blue glow, but now it looked quite dull. He would probably throw it in the rubbish bin at the end of the meeting. He didn’t really want to use it as a gravy boat. Merlin knows what his ancestors used it for in the past, he mused with a revolted shudder of his shoulders.
“What’s that you’ve got there, an old Wishing Lamp?” Arthur, who had not been at dinner that evening glanced over as Sirius hastily removed his hands from the offending item. The runes flashed again, and this time they stayed alight. The jewels suddenly looked shiny and brand new, whereas just a second ago they were quite tarnished.
It started to tremble and emitted an eerily twinkling tune. Sirius tried to reach for it again but his hand went straight through it, as if he was viewing the lamp in a pensieve memory.
“Wow..” a childlike voice breathed next to him. Sirius let out a high pitched yelp as he looked around and laid his eyes upon a turquoise haired young boy suddenly standing right next to him, peering down at the lamp on the table with joyful wonder in his eyes. He had a shimmering blue mist surrounding him, similar to the glowing runes.
“Who the bloody hell are you?” he yelled at the kid, then instantly paled at the idea of raising his voice at a child like that. Who did he think he was, Walburga Black? However, it didn't seem to matter as the child completely ignored him anyway, as if he hadn’t even heard a sound. Sirius went to grab hold of the child's shoulder to stop him reaching out for the lamp but his hand went straight through him as well, just as it had done the lamp.
Dumbledore was trying to get the boy's attention whilst the rest of the Order sat in stunned silence but it was as if he was here in the room alone. A ghost then? An old deceased Black child that the lamp had somehow conjured? But Sirius looked at the clothes he was wearing and knew that just couldn't be the case. The kid had on bright blue jogging bottoms and a white t-shirt with a huge bat on it. Any other member of the Black family would have an aneurysm at the idea of one of their progeny wearing these clothes. Sirius however thought he looked pretty damn cool.
“Teddy, are you ready for-” Sirius looked up as a young woman walked into the kitchen. She too had a blue ghostly sheen surrounding her, much like the boy did. As she made her way to the table her form passed through Hestia, who gasped loudly and stiffened in her seat.
The woman looked quite familiar to Sirius, with her wild curly hair and bright eyes but he couldn’t figure out how he knew her. She didn’t look much like the kid, but he supposed she could have been his mother.
“Is that.. Miss Granger?” Snape murmured to Minerva.
“Aye, it certainly looks like her - but she looks all grown up,” said Minerva, who was sitting nearest to where the young woman stood now. She reached over to tap her on the hand and Sirius watched intently as Minerva's hand went right through to the tabletop.
“Miss Granger.. Hermione? Is that you?” she tentatively asked but again, it was as if they weren’t even present in the room and the young woman only had eyes for the boy.
“What is the meaning of this?” Dumbledore glared at Sirius. “Have you been letting others into this house?”
“How the bloody hell would I have done that, you’re the secret keeper Albus!” Sirius retorted.
“Look at this Mimi!” the child called. “It just started glowing and making music!”
The woman, Mimi, or Hermione, if Minerva was to be believed, a somehow very grown up Hermione, worlds apart from the teenage girl that he knew was currently upstairs in one of the bedrooms in this house, peered closer to the table, her eyebrows furrowing in confusion.
“Is it a new toy? Who bought it for you?” she asked with a tilt of her head.
“I don’t know, I just saw it on the table. I’ve never seen it before. It’s really cool though, can I keep it? Wow, look at the lights on the wall!” the boy babbled quickly as he prodded the lamp’s gemstone handle.
Hermione’s face paled as she looked around the room. For indeed, the runes that were glowing from the lamp had projected onto the walls and all across the ceiling.
“Harry,” she called, her voice shaking. Not once did she take her eyes away from the glowing symbols. “Harry! Get in here right now!”
She moved slowly closer towards the table. “Teddy, I need you to stop touching that and take a step back for me.”
A commotion at the door to the kitchen broke the young boy's concentration as he looked up. Sirius’ breath caught in his throat as he looked at the newcomer and he heard Remus let out a strangled sound. Because it was James. His dearest friend, his brother in all but blood, was standing at the door, breathing laboured from his hasty run to the kitchen.
But no, he realised in agony a split second later. It couldn’t be James. No spell or magical artefact can somehow bring someone from the future and someone from the past together in one moment. Because Sirius knew that was what the projection was; it was the future. And this was future Harry. Future Hermione had said it herself.
“What’s all the racket?” he rushed into the room. A tall blonde man followed him towards the table and as soon as he looked at the lamp his eyes widened and he grabbed hold of the young boy and dragged him away back towards the door he’d just walked through.
Hermione was standing rooted on the spot, looking around the room. Her mouth was moving but no sound came out, until she let out a strangled whisper of, “oh no.”
“Oh no, what?” Harry demanded, moving to stand next to her.
“No, no no no no,” she looked up at Harry, tears pooling in her eyes. “Harry, I think someone has performed a summoning.”
“What does that me-“ Harry’s frantic question was cut off by a high pitched scream coming from the lamp, as if it was a boiled kettle that was ready to be poured.
“Get down! Get away from it!” the blonde man yelled, and Sirius thought he looked familiar as well.
But it seemed his warning was for nought, for as soon as the lamp's screaming had ended, Hermione had begun screaming herself. Her body dropped harshly to the floor and she was dragged closer to the table as if someone had lassoed her by the ankles. Harry grabbed hold of her hands as she was levitated into the air by her feet but it was to no avail, and Sirius watched in horror as the two of them were sucked into the spout of the lamp and both disappeared.
“Mimi, no! Harry!” the young boy screamed, tears running down his face as he fought against the blonde man's grip on him. “Draco, what do we do?!”
Sirius’ eyes widened comically as he watched the scene. There was only one ponce he knew brazen and bold enough to name his son Draco, and with hair that platinum, Sirius knew that he could only be Narcissa and Lucius’ boy.
Draco looked down at the young boy but before he could say anything his feet were pulled from under him and he too was dragged towards the table. The kid followed, screaming and crying as they were both sucked into the spout of the glowing lamp, which now, Sirius noted, looked to be of a solid material once again.